Hi Everyone,
I hope this e mail finds you all well and in good health,as we are here in (very hot)Beijing the average temp for last 2 weeks has been about 27.
We placed a couple of adverts on the internet and in the magazine "The Beijinger" 2 weeks ago offering my services as a English teacher and/or proof reader, editor of translated into English documents,within 1 day I was contacted by 2 schools and 1 publishing company and then the same evening when out for a walk we passed a private teaching company named "The glory teaching centre" and they had an advertisement in the office asking for teachers. So we went in and arranged to have an interview the following morning Saturday,after which they offered me 2 classes teaching conversational English one to adults one to children and asked if I wanted more as they were looking for people to go to local companies and teach their staff.I said no to that and reminded them I was retired and only wanting a few hours,they offered me £10 a hour which I accepted and agreed 2 hours for each group.
The first class with the 5 adults on the Monday night was not to good,  they had given me a copy of the topic on the Saturday that they said the class had been given the previous week titled "Natural Disasters",which they are supposed to read and study in order that they can then converse with me on the subject after struggling for over an hour (their English was not as good as the company had led me to believe) they said it was to hard that they did not understand and had just been given the topic the previous day. I asked them to pick a topic,they said food,I said ok start talking to me about food,one of them said "what,s your favourite food "? The students cancelled the next week.Then the one with the children was cancelled as there were not enough, but I was given 2 hours a week on a one to one with a 12 year old boy which is going well.
I have also signed a contract with the publishing company and they gave me my first book to proof read and edit it's a 200 page instructional book on how to draw Japanese Manga translated from Japanese into Chinese then English haha (quite a bit of work in that one).I have to have it completed by 1st June that pays £10 for every 1,000 words whether edited or not.
What else I have I done?Oh yes we drove upto the Western Hills on Sunday and visited the eight Buddhist Temples there,two of which were for nuns only and one of them was well known for it,s tea so we sat on a balcony enjoying the tea at £8 a pot.The whole area was extremely busy with visitors and very commercial even driving up the road towards them we were  stuck in traffic and other drivers were overtaking us then they were stuck facing the traffic coming down so no one was going anywhere,lots of horns honking, people shouting ( me included haha).What was not nice to see were the people outside the entrances with all kinds of animals for sale in overcrowded cages and sweltering heat.It's quite common to see some animals for sale as it's traditional to buy them and release them,but that was not the case here.
Also been to the Imax screen to see the film about the  space shuttle and hubble telescope in 3d that was incredible especially when you felt like you were going through the galaxies.
A last little story, I was at the hospital yesterday to see the doctor as I have been feeling tired,losing a bit of weight plus some aches and pains ect.We were, of course there all morning, I noticed some elderley people carrying little stools,benches with them,then I realized why whenever we were in a line they would promptly sit down,they know all about waiting .The best one was when I finally got into the room to see the doctor I was sat there and she was asking me lots of question while taking my blood pressure,looking at my throat,writing it all down in my medical book, and I looked around and there were 4 complete strangers obviously waiting there turn to see a doctor who had just walked into the room and were stood watching it all and leaning over my shoulder to read my notes and no one said or did anything,very strange.I then had to go and have a blood test done we walked into a large room and there were some girls behind what looked like a post office counter you joined one of the lines and then gave them the doctors notes rolled up your sleeve stuck your arm through the glass opening and they took the blood gave you a lump of cotton to hold over the puncture and as you walked away the next person stuck their arm through haha.
 

Hi Everyone,
We are still in a heatwave here I don,t think it will get any cooler now as summer approaches.There is a strange phenomenen that happens in beijing in April/ May a few years ago the gov,t decided to plant as many trees as they could in the city and a large proportion were poplars especially the female ones as apparently they grow very fast but this time of year they give off their seeds like small fine pieces of cotton so the whole city is covered in what looks like snow it gets everywhere,someone hadn,t thought that one through haha.
When we go for a walk around the complex there is an apartment in another block on the first floor which has a life size statue of Buddha in the window and gongs,bells ect,so I asked Jun could we just go and knock on their door and introduce ourselves which we did on Sunday they are a lovely family and practice in the Pure land tradition the bedroom is fitted out as a full ceremony hall they told us about their temple which is one of the ones we are going to visit soon anyway and said we can sit with them whenever we want to.
We visited a photography and art exhibition recently one of the art exhibitions was really interesting we walked into a large room and all across the floor there were clothes,furniture and other objects seemingly just scattered although it did look like some kind of pattern then we went upstairs following the arrows and when you looked down on it it became a picture ( I will send 2 photos one at eye level and one from above) very clever.We called to the bookworm i mentioned in my last e mail and i was right i didn,t like it.Also been to a couple more parks one of them was the beijing botanical gardens really beautiful but very crowded till we paid 20p each to go into the enclosed bonsai park that was fantastic an absolute oasis of trees,rocks and waterfalls.There are i think about 4/5 parks around where we live and have visited them all during the day but the other night we walked to the nearest one which is the smallest but i think the nicest and we saw open air ballroom dancing,a light/ water show kids and adults playing all kinds of games, ping pong,badminton, an open air film show (put on for the workers from the countryside who live on the building sites) a group of people writing poetry on the floor with water I now realize how popular that is since i first saw it,everyone was enjoying the evening and we found some nice bits of slate that had been thrown out for our plants,bonsais.
There was a lovely teahouse we went in not long ago in one of the old hutongs everything was old and subdued light with seats in corners overlooking a centre courtyard  with plants ,an old well, bits of furniture  and shafts of sunlight hitting them it was the kind of place you could have just sat in all day magical.
I laughed the other day at something i observed,the places we eat at over here aren,t sometimes as clean as we are used to in england and of course everyone smokes while eating ect, the food is always delicous but i make sure i dont see the kitchens, anyway i watched this woman who worked there wash her hands in a sink in the corner of the restaraunt and as i watched i was pleased to see how well she washed them then when she finished she walked over to the nearest tablecloth and dried her hands on it haha.
Well i will finish now and add a few photos, oh yes we have booked our flights we arrive back in UK on 7th July for 3 week visit we had to shop around as flights are very expensive but got flights on aeroflot flying to moscow then heathrow at nearly £200 each cheaper than other airlines ( I think they are ex world war 2 bombers ).
 

Hi Everyone,
Just got back home after a bike ride,it's to hot we have been having a mini heat wave for last 2 weeks although thankfully we did have a day and half of rain last week, it was lovely to walk out after and smell the air.The whole area is awash with colours all the cherry blossom are in full bloom the trees,flowers grass,the gardeners are doing a lovely job in our complex,they have just filled all the ponds and streams and turned on the waterfalls and stocked it all up with hundreds of goldfish.
We went to the Beijing International film centre and railway museum the other weekend it's out close to the airport,the film centre was an amazing building on 4 floors a bit like our film and photography centre in bradford with film and interactive sets.The railway museum was a very large building housing about 15 trains steam and diesel as well as carriages and other stock,nowhere as good as our york one but still impressive especially the huge long haul steam locomotives.I got a good picture of a woman sat in the middle of all these trains but she was just watching a kids show of thomas the tank engine in chinese on a tv haha.
Went to a concert last Saturday evening a french group performing Vivaldi,s The Four Seasons,we went to the centre on the afternoon and walked for miles around the square and through some of the old areas (the hutongs) found a nice old run down cafe "the cafe of poetry" run and owned by a young woman they have music ,poetry and book reading evenings,we got talking to her about the photographs she had displayed on the walls,they were her friends who was having an exhibition on in Beijing so she gave us two free tickets to go and see them.She also showed us postcards of the photographs that she had done and said she could do some of mine for £4 for eight they were really good so I might get some done.
My driving is getting better all the time, i can navigate around good areas of Beijing now without getting lost so by the time we have visitors coming out they will have a good taxi service although their heart will be in their mouth till they get used to it haha.
It's May holiday weekend so Jun is off for 4 days so we are planning to go back upto the Monastery on the Sunday setting off about 6am to arrive for the first service at 8am.Also going back to the art centre of Beijing on Saturday to finish seeing it all,and we might be going to a place called "The Bookworm"tonight it's owned and run by some English people,they have a very large bookshop and library, cafe,bar they hold music,reading,talks ect evenings there is a talk and presentation tonight with photo's about a british engineer who had a a lot of run ins and adventures with the local manchu warlord when he was building the bridges and railways in the 1920's.We are not sure if it's the kind of place Jun and I will fit in with but we wont know till we give it a try.

Hi Everyone,
We got back from our 5 day visit to the city of Xian on thursday it was a really nice place with lots to see.We left Beijing the previous friday evening it took me over 1.5 hours to drive to the main railway station in west beijing it was getting dark with heavy rain and the friday night holiday rush hour traffic and to add to all that we took 2 wrong turns i ended up just being a beijing driver and cut across 3 lanes of traffic to get to the other side waving my arm out of the window at everyone (It worked) I have now realized there is no such thing as lane markings they are just there for guidance haha.
We arrived in Xian at 9am Saturday after a 13 hour train ride we were in a 4 bed compartment but jun and I had the top bunks but managed to get the bottom ones for the return journey.
We went out every day visiting the sights or walking around the city and on an evening we went to an amazing massage centre we found the second night we were served tea in our own massage room while having a foot bath followed by 90 minutes of massage Ah bliss!
We visited a archaeological site of a 6,000 year old village of a group of people named Ben Po it was full of pots and urns with skeletons of babies inside as well as skeletons of adults and the artefacts they had been buried with,the whole village had been built over to protect it.We also of course visited the famous teracotta tombs it is a really big place, very touristy but still worth seeing it's hard to believe that so much could be created and buried it makes you think how much more is still buried they know where the emperor qin shi huang's tomb is located but apparently don,t yet have the means to unearth it all and keep it preserved as it covers a huge area.The farmer who discovered the teracotta warriors when digging for a well  was paid £4 by the gov,t at the time 1973 and later  when he became a bit of a celebrity and was asked to sign a book for the french president the gov,t were embarressed when he couldn,t write so they taught him.Now the strange thing was he was there the day we were there, signing books I took a photo of him then spotted the sign saying no photographs to late, but then a young woman with a child tried to get her child photographed next to him and gave him some money he looked at the amount maybe about £1 and with a complete look of arrogant scorn threw it on the floor and turned back to signing the books and ignored her.
Another day we took a bus upto the mountains then took a cable car upto the top it went straight up a sheer face into the clouds so at the top you couldn,t see down,poor Jun was terrified of the ride up and wanted to walk back down there was a small taoist temple at the top and a small building were you could stay overnight plus a couple of cafes.
I was stood on the top looking out when a chinese man appeared from over the edge climbing onto the platform and when i went over and looked down he had been stood on a bamboo scaffold fixing some electric wires no safety harness or anything crazy.
The best day was when we took 2 boneshaker buses out to the villages at the base of the chinling mountains the mountains are famous for the Buddhist and Taoist hermit monks/nuns who live in them,we walked up through 2 villages to the base and visited  a small Buddhist temple that had 10 monks living there.The villagers were really friendly and laughed at my attempts to speak to them the little children kept sneaking up to look at me then giggle and get all embarressed and run away,as we were walking back down going a different way through the village i spotted some old cave dweller homes (I have been hoping to find some for ages) they were locked up but when we spoke to 2 teenage boys who were passing one of them said he used to live in one till he was six and ran off to get the key from his grandparents but the lock was to rusty to open  but i got to photograph them.



   








 
 
 

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Hi Everyone,
Finally got a bit of time to sit down and start this e mail,who would have thought retirement could be so busy haha.
As i briefly mentioned in the last blog we visited a Pure Land Buddhist Monastery the other weekend it was quite a journey to get there 3 hours and 3.15 to get back I had to drive into the city centre to pick up our other friends who were going with us then drive right across the city and out to the west as one of them Jane was showing us how to get there as it is her training temple she goes up regular for retreats and voluntary work days.It was really nice to see so many young people up there doing voluntary work,we met some more lay trainees and got to visit parts of the monastery not open for visitors of which there are many as it is in the centre of the very popular western hills for hikers,we were also invited to lunch with all the trainees, workers, a little bit different from Throssel, as in men and women eat seperately,there are lines of tables in pairs were people sit facing each other but with a gap down the centre to allow the servers to walk down filling your bowls,also a lot longer meal time ceremony.
We drove over to the large market the other day then went to see some people selling plants in the flyover underpass near by, I had riden past them the other week on my bike I bought a lovely bayan tree bonsai it stands about 14 inces high and looks about 10 years old but probally no more than 3/5 at the price of only £10 the apartment is rapidly filling up with plants they are so nice and cheap.
We visited the Olympic village and stadium yesterday as it was close to the theatre we were going to on the evening thats all in the north area of the city but i drove around on the expressway so it only took 1 hour 15 minutes.It is a very nice area as you would expect, i took a photo of the most expensive apartment block in Beijing that overlooks the stadium,there are many visitors there especially chinese tourists from the countryside parks were full of buses,we had two groups come up to me and Jun and ask if they could photgraph  me stood with their children,three of the chidren stood with me straight away, two were a bit reluctant and one looked at me and burst into tears haha.
The show on the evening was very good it was traditional acrobats, martial artists,dancers,a magician and finished with a large steel ball in which 6 motorcyclists went in and rode around the inside round and round and up and down at high speed (not very traditional but breathtaking to watch) the guy next to me had not clapped at any of the other acts but couldn,t contain himself with this one he was jumping up, clapping ,shouting haha.
There was another of the acts that consisted of dancers in masks waving flags,but the main one was out front dancing and every so often his hand went towards his face and the mask changed it was so fast he even came down off the stage to the front and was stood 8 feet from me and and i stared at his face when he did again and i could not see how he did it the mask just appeared to change instantly.
Jun and I are going away this next weekend for 4 days down to Xian to visit the terracotta army and the tombs of emperor qin shi huang,so hopefully i will get some good photo's, we are going by train as it is so much cheaper than flying but it is a 13 hour journey,but it's overnight and we have a sleeper although we have to share the compartment with others the same as we did last year coming back from shao xing.

Hi Everyone,
I hope you are all well as we both are here,Spring is here now, well the Chinese Govt say's it is officially spring on the 15th of March and thats the day they turn off the heating, so I guess it must be haha.
Well i managed to pass my driving test yesterday i had to be at the transport police headquarters for 10am and i joined about another 30 foreigners we all went into a large classroom each with our own desk and computer and the police patrolled up and down the lines while we logged on then started the test,there were 100 questions taken from the regulations book of 700 and you had 45 minutes to answer them with the pass rate at 90 I scraped through on 91 but judging by the way everyone drives here the memory of it must be deleted within 48 hours as no one takes any notice of the traffic law.I collect my licence on friday which has my Chinese name on it  (remember the carry on I had registering) which is Ba We Li (Barnett William).
I have just got back from my morning swim i go to the pool 3 times a week and for a massage twice a week it's a hard life,going to take the dog out shortly then make a bit more effort to start learning the language now that the driving test is out of the way.
We visited the art area in Beijing the other weekend it's about 1 square mile and used to be factories,workshops goods train yards and now it has been taken over by artists,all the old factories and workshops are studios, art galleries,cafes,restaraunts,photography shops,exhibitions ect, it's a lovely place to walk around but it would take more than a day to see it all.
Last week we went down to Tian' anmen square as over the last few weeks there had been some demonstrations named the jasmine revolution people gathering sitting quietly or walking around but the police were determined to stop it they closed some of the subway line down and closed off some streets blocked mobile phone signals stopped reporters talking to people.When we went down during the week after going to the driving school it was finished but there was a huge police presence and they were stopping and searching everyone.There was a joke going around that there were that many police undercover they didn't know who was who and they were going upto people and whispering "Are you one of us?"
Jun and I went out for a meal last friday to a place that specialises in food from Sichuan province i said i will try the red pepper potato hotpot Jun said are you sure it is very hot and spicy but i went ahead and ordered it,It's the first time in my life food has managed to numb my whole mouth and tongue I couldn,t feel anything haha Jun said people get addicted to it but there's no danger of that to me.
 

Hi Everyone,
Hope you are all keeping well as I am, now that the virus has finally departed.We decided to go to the hospital this week just to make sure it wasn't anything else the doctor examined me and said "yes it's a virus in your bronchial passageways don't worry you are ok" haha that was that.I had to register before i could see the doctor and as i couldn,t register there and then (As usual) we went into see the doctor with Jun's card then when we went back on the afternoon for some x rays i got my registration card and medical book but the x rays were done on jun's card ,so the x rays were of me but they had Jun's name date of birth etc on them the doctor said thats fine dont worry about it and just signed my book It's very strange,the other thing that used to happen untill quite recently is that when you now go to the hospital you wait in line to recieve a number and you have to show ID then they put your name on your numbered ticket,but previously they didn't do that so people used to go to the hospitals very early on a morning get a number then stand outside and sell it like a ticket tout haha.I had a laugh when we arrived as i drove the car to the carpark  while Jun went and stood in line, and the old guy directing the traffic with a old uniform greycoat on and cap waved for me to go left then he spotted that i was a foreigner and came to attention and saluted me then we just looked at each other and both burst out laughing he was a real character i saw him again later and we both started laughing once more.
I have finally got my theory test book to read/study ready to sit the test when they send for me, they said (the training centre) you can sit it at the local transport police station you don't have to come here so we said "what are we paying you a £100 for then just this book and a bit of admin work" so he went away and came back and said it's for your training,we said "what training "He said you can have someone go through the theory test with you for 4 hours but it's in chinese you will have to get someone to translate for you,so that was the extent of what they have done for the £100 so Jun said ok we will have it and I will translate haha they didn,t expect that.
I was riding my bike alongside the river the other day and got a fright when in the distance i spotted a small body in the river i rode up and then realized it was a dummy but it looked so real i have included a photo to show you.
We were walking through a park at the weekend and i noticed alongside the public toilet blocks that there was a clothes line with washing hanging on it a shirt and trousers so i said to Jun I have noticed that before she said yes it,s the cleaner they live in the toilet block in a small room would that constitute "tied accommodation".
Oh another recent thing is i have found an indoor swimming pool in the complex next to ours so i am going to join this weekend.We also found a great private clinic just 10 minutes away where all the therapists are either blind or partially sighted they are such a friendly happy group we have already been for two massage treatments this week you get 1 hour massage for £3,a photo of part of the clinic also enclosed.
We also went to the tea market at the weekend I say market the whole area is about the half the size of Hartlepool we sampled some lovely teas one of them red mountain oolong was selling for £125 for a half kilo.

Hi Everyone,
I am still getting over this throat/chest illness i dont think the cold/dry/dusty conditions here help,but spring is starting to show itself.We had the last night of fireworks (officially that is) the other day for the lantern festival which marks the end of the New Year festivities but you can still see and hear them.
The Gov,t seeded the clouds the week before last to bring an end to the drought (I thought the loud explosions were more fireworks haha) the result of that was we had snow for about 5 days.
Thank you to those who have wrote back to me it's nice to hear from you and hear your news I really look forward to recieving them.
One of the results of the constant dry/dusty conditions is we use an object that is shaped like an ancient little oil lamp and you fill it with warm salty water then inset it in one nostril and through gravity and squeezing it you flush out each nostril it's a strange feeling but certainly makes you feel better,I can understand now why you see and hear so many people coughing and spitting everywhere you go, as the dust and dryness really gets to you.
Last Monday we went back to the Beijing Institute of Performing Arts to see a chinese production of Verdi's opera La Traviata it was good,Jun came home from work early so we could travel to the centre and get something to eat before the show,that was a mistake we hit it right in the middle of the rush hour on the metro It's a bit surreal standing on a platform and watching a train go through with peoples faces literally flat against the windows when the doors opened we pushed in and i thought we will never get on but we did along with another 5 behind us then the 6th a middle aged woman had her arms and legs in but her head and torso were hanging outside and one of the security personal grabbed her and pulled her off and she started shouting at her for doing it I thought she probally just saved you from a serious injury.It was on the news 2 weeks ago about a man getting off the metro and the doors closed and caught his coat he had to get his coat off himself as the train was starting to move.
We went to the hospital last week for my medical so that i can apply for my driving test the first time they sent us away as i didn't have the form and a photo (they dont tell you you need it beforehand) when we went back she said to me as she looked at the form "how tall are you" so i told her then she said read this chart with a hand over your left eye then your right she pointed to a letter E so i said E she said no then pointed to a what i thought was a M again told no then she pointed to what i thought was a W again a no I shouted Jun over and she explained they are all shaped like a E but you have to say which way the 3 lines are pointing up down left or right haha anyway i was ok after that and after doing that and reading 2 numbers in a colour chart she said ok you are fit to apply.So yesterday we got the driving school bus out to the driving centre which took 1 hour 45 minutes the place was huge there must have been another 40/50 buses bringing people from other areas and at a guess about 400/500 training cars we went to register but they said because my name on my residency paper wasn't in Chinese i would have to go back to the police station to have them put it on so we had to get the bus back home and do it all again next week there are many oppurtunities to practice patience and acceptance sadly i dont always suceed.
We have found 5 zen temples in and around Beijing that you can attend and stay for retreats so we are going to have a look at them over the next few weeks and hopefully have one we can start going to on a regular basis I have also found a tai chi group here at BDA i found them last Saturday morning when i went out early with the dog so we are going to speak with them.There is also a local woman who has advertised for a teacher for her son in the BDA news sheet so we are going to contact her as well as maybe put our own advert in for anyone interested in joining us for a weekly meditation group.
At the moment i am still settling in so i dont do to much during the week when Jun is at work I have my twice daily meditation and taichi/chigung and i do the cleaning,washing/ironing shopping (some things never change haha) I spend some time reading or on the internet i have joined a couple of photography groups as i now have more time to try and develop and enjoy it more,and i also go either for a walk with the dog or go for a bike ride exploring the area.I will start going further on the metro or in the car when i have passed my theory test over the next few weeks.
We drove right into the centre of the city on saturday as Jun had to go into the head office of the customs to sign some papers so we went on to an area which has a huge plant,fish and garden furniture centre it was amazing what you could get, we bought quite a few house plants,a bonsai tree and a fish tank the place was so colourful you could buy huge wood,stone carvings of Buddha, Kwan yin,Taoist sages some upto 8 feet high,waterfalls, ponds, some of the fish tanks were works of art in how they created different scenes in them.